


Something Ends, Something Begins

by gyromitra



Series: Totally Not A Witcher AU (only it is) [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst with a purple prose, M/M, Original Character(s), Temporary Character Death, Weasels, Witcher AU, at this points: just going with 'dramatic idiots'
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:34:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22887889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyromitra/pseuds/gyromitra
Summary: It will end where it began, and it will begin where it ended.(Personal Bad Witcher AU because why not?)
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Series: Totally Not A Witcher AU (only it is) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1614064
Comments: 14
Kudos: 24





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have an excuse but I don't need one (basically, needed a break from writing happy stuff and this happened - which is the end of the overarching narrative I had on my mind when originally creating this AU).
> 
> The title is after the non-canon story Sapkowski wrote for his friends as a wedding gift, I think only fan translation exists of it. No, there will be no mystery of what happened to the certain gnome, and neither will be people offering to sleep with the dragon.
> 
> The first chapter is, well, short, and unhappy.

The trip takes almost a month. There is nothing to hurry towards, and Gabriel had refused Sombra’s offer of help - she had not offered again, and neither had she asked for his reasons to do so.

Delaying the inevitable would be his best guess but that is a lie he feels in his bones. The truth welters, turbulent but weary and tired, for he wants the forest to remain what it is: a mystery - the place where it all began, and the place where it will end. Something of his own. Because there is nobody that needs to know and remember where Jack came from, save for Gabriel - and he will remember it the same way Jack remembered the songs Gabriel’s mother sang for him.

And Jack… is long gone, already.

What is left of him is an empty shell with no will of its own following orders given to the word bearing only a passing resemblance to whom it had been before Tor Zvaere.

The forest too had succumbed to the same twisted sickness, Gabriel thinks leading the horse through the brambles. The thorns had grown long and thick, hardened into blades, claimed the trees - choked them - stole the light. The smell of decaying plants cloys the air. Blackened bones of woodland creatures and humans alike dot the way he traverses.

Something follows but keeps its distance.

He finds the tree between the roots of which he had sought the refuge from the brigands, the monsters he had seen them, and the monsters they had been indeed.

Their bodies still litter the ground, wrapped in the remnants of cloth and armor, blades scattered and rusted. For those who had offended the forest, no burial would be provided: their flesh left to sustain it, and the spoils of their death allowed to rot, this much Gabriel remembers from his brief stay at the neighboring village before both of them were whisked away by Reinhardt.

The devastation laid out before him is merely the reflection of what had been done to Jack, of all the ways he had been destroyed and killed, his very nature violated in a single act of narcissistic conceit of deluded and self-appointed kingmaker. One of his regrets, that it had not been his doing to put the end to the man’s life - something he might resent Sombra for, even if her fury had mirrored his own.

The forest, it had been alive and verdant once, now nothing more than a gaping sarcophagus waiting for the body to be interred within its confines.

Gabriel turns around and takes hold of Jack’s pale hand, guiding him to dismount the horse with a careful touch. It’s nevertheless an order. Wretched knowledge, he reflects, laying him down on the ground, how such a small and insignificant action still renders Jack only a tool. He moves aside the blindfold covering the eyes red with the color of watered-down wine - the gloom should lessen the discomfort of the light - the discomfort he isn’t sure is even felt anymore.

“I’m… sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you to come with me,” Gabriel whispers, leaning over the unresponsive body, touching his forehead to Jack’s, “but I didn’t know better. I couldn’t have known better. And you, you accepted, and came with me. You should have stayed here.”

The knife is nothing fancy, just a proper tool for hunting and working both, with the handle wrapped in weathered leather. One would think for an occasion such as this the blade should commemorate - but no, Gabriel will keep it, and use it, because it is only a simple tool.

He props the tip angled between the ribs.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats and gives the knife a shove. One movement, swift and kind, and loving. The body under him shudders briefly but Gabriel only sees a little smile and feels the gentle touch on his cheek.

Red bleeds black, and then black bleeds blue.

“D’olch essea, en’ca minne aep Hen Ichaer,” the forest speaks as if it’s the first breath it takes in however long the eternity lasts, and the hand falls away from his face. “Va fáill.”

He leaves Jack there, to sustain the forest.

Past the edge of the woods, Gabriel finds a man beset by an alghoul, the necrophage the one he had sensed following earlier - the beast just old and smart enough to resist the lure of the flesh of a witcher finding another victim - still proving to be of no challenge to him.

The man, Wernund as he calls himself, insists on compensation, pursues after the horse, and Gabriel relents, eventually, staring him down.

“I’ll take what you have already, and know not of it, to be paid the next time we meet.”

It is, after all, the best course of action.

He will never come back here, to this grave that holds the songs of his mother, and the stories of his father, and his birth day \- for there is no-one left to hold those memories safe and treasured for him - and there is no-one left for Gabriel to love.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It gets better. The writing, I mean. Marginally so, but still.

It takes him closer to two decades to return even if he swore he wouldn't come back.

The horse plods slowly along the road; the dirt muffles the sound of its shoes. Only the jingling of the harness and gear rises above the song of the cicadas in the dead summer air.

The trail takes him through the fields of wheat just about losing their greyish-green tint to the dirty yellow of fresh straw. Clusters of red and blue in the grain provide welcome relief from the monotony, as do small birds on a hunt, flitting in and out of the wheat. For the whole day Gabriel barely passes or sees anyone, people probably busy with the festivities preceding the hard work of the harvest, not that he is bothered by it. Far from it, he's rather comfortable drawing no attention even if the region could be considered being favorable to his kin.

The voice calling him comes from behind and Gabriel looks over his shoulder to a man awkwardly chasing him, a big pack on his back and a walking stick in hand. He turns the horse around, waiting for him to catch up.

"Master witcher," the man stops to regain his breath.

"A noonwraith?" That the general populace is less likely to call him a mutant or devil spawn doesn't mean anyone's going to stop him for a chat. The season's right for the wraiths too.

"No, no, not a thing like that, doesn't keep around, master witcher."

The man’s skin resembles leather weathered by sun, grey peeks from under his cap, wrinkles gather around his mouth and eyes.

"Have you come for your pay, master witcher?"

Ah. He hadn't intended to check back on that, mostly forgot about it. Gabriel shakes his head, nothing about it stirs his interest.

"No. Keep it."

The man nods, as if thinking something over, humming to himself.

"Then come with me, master witcher, spend the night, and the feast. Tomorrow's my youngest hair-cutting, and Mikheil's farewells, the boy's leaving the homestead."

"Your oldest?" Gabriel asks on a whim.

"No, no, the third oldest, the boy got into his head he's better off finding his luck on the road. Well-spoken too, didn't get that from me and my girl," the man explains with alien enthusiasm. "Family's farm's not for him."

"That's how kids are. He will come around eventually."

"No, no, master witcher, there's no talking him out of anything, always does what he wants. Me and Lila, we thought of giving him to the druids. Some choice words he had, and the druids, they just said no, but Mikheil's got talents, he could be a one."

The man - Wernund, as Gabriel’s memory suddenly reminds him after almost eighteen years, curious what little tidbits emerge when not expected - continues on about his family, and, regardless of whether or not wanting, he learns ins and outs of the familial life on the farm.

Curiouser, Wernund keeps to the horse's side, and Gabriel feels no need to hurry the mount out of its complacent tempo.

"... I know the naming is mine but Lila chose the name for Nielub, it's a good name, strong name. Woj. The boy will fight a bear barehanded if allowed."

"And the woods, how are they?"

The treeline, closer and definite, sways on the afternoon wind, greener than Gabriel recalls it to have been when he paid it the last visit with Jack.

"Never better. I don't know what you did in there, master witcher, but a month, and it was like before."

"Only returned what had been taken from it. Gabriel," he adds. "It's my given name."

With a glance, he observes the plethora of mixed emotions on Wernund's face, waits for the offer of the stay to be rescinded, but to his surprise, the man again nods to himself.

"So it would be you, master witcher. Must've had your reasons."

"Gabriel."

"Would be improper, master witcher." Gabriel chuckles at his headstrong resolution and the refusal to feel fright at being in the presence of the one hailed the Reaper. "And there, there is my home." 

Wernund points at the buildings at the edge of the forest, almost directly on the no-one's land between the trees looming over the road and the swaying wheat. The farmyard is too big and ample for him to travel on foot - a house, a shed, and a stable, probably a coop too in the back, all separate.

With the diminishing distance, the activity in front of the house becomes obvious: two women sitting on the wooden bench - both plucking chickens, some down floating freely - one man chopping the wood, and a boy running with a stick with several colorful ribbons tied to it. As they get closer, one of the women notices them - quickly says something - the rest of the way they pass under the scrutiny, and the boy, must be Nielub, runs towards his father, the ribbons fluttering behind him.

The boy is blond, as is the man leaning now on the axe.

The women, on the other hand, both have rich brown hair, though the older one is visibly greying in front and on her temples - where her locks are woven around polished copper rings glinting in the sun.

Gabriel reins in the horse and dismounts while the boy asks after the gifts.

"Lila!" Wernund sends the boy back to play, placating him with a wooden sword from his backpack propped now against the wall. "Lila, we have a guest."

"I noticed," she huffs, returning to her work after giving her husband a lingering look. "Mojmira. Bring the pitcher."

Being observed - regarded with suspicion - never something he grew accustomed to even if it'd always been present in the background of his life, but now back of Gabriel's neck prickles with the question unasked and the weight of her eyes on him.

"I have no intention of taking..."

"Not important." Lila cuts him off, fingers deftly tearing out the feathers, her head tilted to the side hawkishly. "You must be the witcher, the one who rescued this idiot husband of mine. I've seen you in my ken."

Ah, one of those. Gabriel nods, smiling with the corner of his lips.

"You have my thanks, for everything. There's a place for you, and the horse, in the stable, clean, and tomorrow, the feast. You'll be staying."

Mojmira comes back from the house with a clay jug held in one hand, and a wooden cup she hands him, dark eyes flicking to his face.

"I see," Gabriel chuckles, raising the cup to his lips - the smell and the taste slightly sour, water with vinegar. "A counteroffer."

"Maybe." Lila throws feathers to the ground. "Fate allows for bargains, but it won't be scorned, not even by the likes of you, witcher."

He glances at Wernund standing several feet away, talking with his oldest, Adan, as he came to know on the way.

"Is your daughter the same?"

Mojmira, sitting again by the side of her mother, and back at work, giggles.

"All the women in my line have their gifts."

"And your husband said you're not well-spoken."

"My husband, as much as I love him, is many things, but he had not been born and raised here. He needs not to know."

"I see. I'll be going to the forest but I commit myself to be back for the night."

"Fine by me," Lila nods and Gabriel leaves the cup on the bench. "And if you find Mikheil hunting rabbits there, send him home."

"You let your son..."

"You should know, witcher, better than anyone, that if the forest wants to give, it does, and if it doesn't want to, it doesn't."

"It also has a way of punishing those that take what they shouldn't," his tone is sharper than he intends it to, and Gabriel sighs, closing his eyes for a moment.

"That is why we never take what is not offered. If the rabbit springs from under your feet, is it not a gift?"

Gabriel prefers not to answer her knowing smile. Instead, he turns and leaves the horse grazing in the yard and, with a heavy heart, he crosses the road and walks into the forest's shade, feeling her gaze resting on his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm trying to be more social - and still failing at it :D but that's also big-ass case of FOMO, and also flitting between the images and ideas on rapid cycle.  
> If you want, you can drop me a line on @LMSDread or ListOfDeadlyFungi on PF, but I might drop dead from anxiety before answering.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A trip down the memory lane.

The woods are nothing like he remembers them, lush and green now - neither a desolate and twisted place overgrown with thorns and full of bones, nor full of monsters dark nightmare of a child. There is life in the trees, birds and insects singing. He spots a fox deeper in - it idly considers him before turning and disappearing in the bushes.

Gabriel lets himself wander, a ghost of a smile on his lips, and fingers brushing against the spot under which the flower rests. Maybe he should have had visited years earlier, but it had never felt like a thing to do, the current situation more of an accident than anything else.

It's the smell of fresh blood that pulls him out of his thoughts, and he approaches carefully the small clearing. Two rabbits being bled hang by their hind legs from a low branch, next to them some fish with a twine threaded under their gills. A bow and a quiver lie on the ground. A young man, judging by the posture, sits on the grass with his back to him, occupied with something in his lap. Blond, like the other sons of Wernund.

"Mikheil?"

"You're the worst at collecting your pay, you know?" The boy, springing to his feet, chuckles, and turns. "I was about to go look for you myself."

Gabriel freezes, faced with the impossibility of the image before him, his eyes drifting to the weasel swinging freely from the hands holding it.

"You hate..."

"Oh, yeah, I still do, I guess," Jack mutters distracted, "but this is Lord Murders-A-Lot."

Younger, with places still left to fill out, awkward frame - the legs and arms a bit too long and bony, bits of baby fat waiting to disappear, hair not short enough, dissonances like a vision superimposed on something real.

"...and he murders a lot," slips from Gabriel's lips.

"Mostly chicks. I'm trying to wane him off murder," Jack moves his hands - the weasel appears to be content with being swung around, "and teach him to go after the eggs, but it's not working out. At least, the eggs don't scream at him they're being murdered like just right now, like the chicks do." Gabriel takes a tentative step forward as Jack continues to speak. "Voles, too. I've even seen him take down a rabbit once, he's an exceptional murder ribbon."

"I miss you," Gabriel manages barely a whisper.

"Well, you certainly didn't hurry then," Jack scoffs, before his eyes widen a bit. He crosses the distance between them - Gabriel cannot shift his gaze away from the weasel as if it’s the most egregious part of the picture - and stops in front of him. "You're still thinking I'm not here."

"No, you're here, just..." A memory, an apparition, a vision? Not real, not physical, because Jack is dead.

"I sure hope I'm not whatever it is you're imagining me to be, Rhenaweddin."

Jack moves, quick, his lips warm and chapped at the edges, with an elusive taste of something sweet and green between them, the spicy relish of chaos tagging behind to be chased after. Gabriel grabs onto his arms to keep him in place before he slips away, again.

"I'm really counting on that last growth spurt. Standing on my toes to kiss you, cub, it's going to get old fast."

"That's," Gabriel laughs, almost silent, contained - maybe the emotion has a hysterical flavor to it. "That's what you're worried about?"

"Small things to worry about are good things. Now," Jack puts Lord Murders-A-Lot on his shoulder and the weasel with no delay flattens itself around his neck, "what has my mother managed to rope you into?"

"A bargain. I might have traded..."

"Then you weren't listening, cub."

The tightness in his throat is making it hard for him to speak.

"Told to send you home."

"Sneaky woman," Jack clicks his tongue with appreciation, stretching his neck out for a quick peck. "Well, best not to keep her waiting too long then, she can be truly cattish at times."

Gabriel watches him turn, gather the bow and the quiver, pick the rabbits and the fish from the branch as if it's the most common - the most reasonable - thing to do. His medallion remains motionless, the thought of having missed its movement earlier in the day troubles him.

"Are you coming, little cub?" Jack laughs, passing him, the weasel still on its perch, its eyes closed and nose twitching. "It feels somewhat strange calling you that when I'm shorter than you."

At that age, yes, Jack hadn't been the tallest, rapidly gaining height only later. They both did, but it took more time for Jack to grow into his body - his agility strangely mismatched with his disproportionate limbs and bony hips. All paired up with a little cheeky grin like the one he wears now when he looks over his shoulder at Gabriel.

"I'm coming."

Rabbits and fish. Out hunting when they should be training, returning to the keep with the spoils they had not roasted already over the fire hidden in the cove, stomachs full, ready for the reprimand coming from Reinhardt.

It's a memory playing out again in front of Gabriel.

He should, probably, thank the forest for that glimpse, or hate it, deeply, for forcing him to remember and dwell on the happier times, uncomplicated moments, when the only worry had been doing something stupid - which they both were good at, exceptionally so - and suffering the consequences. Broken bones would mend, and scrapes and cuts, sometimes burns and bites, they would heal.

Jack, leading the way, moves with the same kind of disjointed grace he had observed so many times then. Maybe, it is a chance to say proper goodbyes, and to put the haunting ghosts to rest.

"Wait," Gabriel calls after him as Jack is about to cross the invisible boundary of the forest and walk onto the road - the homestead and the fields visible in glimpses between the trees - and the moment has to end.

"You really won't like mother when she's angry."

And just like that, he steps outside the woods, leaving Gabriel with his hand outstretched behind.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There be talk of ploughing and proper wild wives, a noisy cock, and two over-dramatic idiots.

Gabriel waits for Jack to vanish, for the illusion to fall away from the boy - yet nothing happens, it's still the same painfully familiar silhouette cut against the darkening sky. The fact he doesn't remember there being any homestead this close to the forest does not assuage his uneasiness.

Respect it, trust it, revere it, but do not come too close to it if need not arises. The medallion lies dormant. Gabriel draws in a deep breath and follows Jack - not Jack.

The table is set - bread, butter, and white cheese, a pitcher in the center, probably more water - lit by two torches on poles sticking out of the ground. Lila combs her fingers through Jack's hair, but her eyes are on Gabriel.

"Rabbits and fish, as promised."

"Go inside and welcome your father, he's back from the town."

"Yes, mother."

Jack leaves the catch hanging on the hook by the door and disappears inside the house. Lila waits before speaking again.

"Did you find what you were looking for, witcher?"

"No," Gabriel holds her gaze.

"More's the pity, then," she points to the table with her palm upturned. "You still have the night and tomorrow. Let's eat, now."

Gabriel seats himself on the bench, the swords he puts on his right - ready to be drawn at a moment's notice. The message is clear. Lila raises her chin, taking her place on the other side of the table, hand reaching for the cloth covering the jug, and, one by one, the other inhabitants join them as she pours the water into the cups.

"Two?" Adan nudges Jack with his elbow.

"We have guests tomorrow."

"I see one, not counting the Lord. Are you inviting some of your forest friends?"

"You'll have to wait and see for yourself," Jack tears off a handful of bread for himself.

"Any friend on your mind?" Mojmira smiles at Adan who now looks at his hands placed awkwardly on the table.

"I would ne..."

"Children," Lila speaks over them, placing a piece of bread in front of Gabriel, the next one she gives to Wernund. "Behave."

"If he's thinking about ploughing the nymphs..." Jack winces after a scuffle under the table. "Yes, mother, no talk of ploughing. Not like they'd be unwilling," he adds under his breath, visibly moving his legs out of the way. "Better than bruxa for tylwyth wife."

"I didn't know she was one!" Adan looks to Lila for help, receiving only a pointed look in return.

"Boys shouldn't wander past the sundown."

The discussion continues with the occasional 'yes, mother' thrown in, the banter not unlike any other heard during a meal shared by a family - if not for the subjects implied that somehow, miraculously, fly over Wernund's head as he partakes in the conversation himself. Gabriel observes, the dissonance jarring in its unremarkable presentation. He barely touches the food and the drink, and excuses himself with the need to wake in the morning.

The stable is clean, his horse taken care of, and on freshly dried grass several blankets are spread. As a precaution, he spills silver dust across the threshold and the small windowsill before he lies down on the blankets in his armor with the hilt of his unsheathed sword under his palm, ready to spend the night in vigil, waiting for the veneers of the illusion to come apart. It's at night, under the full moon, that the creatures of the ilk that could set the trap so sweetly painful it cannot be evaded are at the height of their power, shamelessly bold and unafraid, and whatever comes - if it does - Gabriel will face it head-on.

Time passes and the voices coming from the outside fade. Someone - something - crosses the line of the poured silver, the silhouette distinct and familiar.

"Mother does not approve of you," Jack snickers, stripping his shirt off, letting it fall to the ground before he strides closer. The blankets dip under his weight, the imaginary heat radiating off him felt through the fabric and hardened leather in anticipation even before he slots his frame to Gabriel's and drapes over him with the nose buried in his neck. "Or, rather, she disapproves of your manner."

Gabriel’s fingers curl around the hilt of the sword as Jack's find the spot on his chest where under the armor the small pouch tied securely lies hidden from the sight.

"You still wear it." The tone is changed and Gabriel knows that that the next words will command him to tear it off. But Jack laughs instead, the whimsical and rolling sound vibrating in his chest. "Oh, little cub, if I were what you're thinking me to be, would I not ask for this gift of mine to be returned rightfully? Or maybe I'd just tell you it is all but ground to dust, powerless now?"

Gabriel slowly lifts the blade, just so the creature cannot see it. Above him, Jack shifts.

"Or I’d assure you that if anything has ever protected you from harm, it had been me, not the flower you carry." His palm covers Gabriel's hand and guides the sword between them. The angled blade turns and Jack puts his neck to the edge. The reflected moonlight illuminates the blemish running across his throat, a long line of paler flesh no wider than the nail on a little finger. "Maybe even take it by force since you let me this close, witcher."

The skin parts open on the starmetal steel with each discrete movement of Jack’s neck. Droplets of blood trickle along the length of the blade - and down the line of his neck, to pool in the dip between where the collarbones meet. Gabriel's breath dies in his chest, the sound of his own heart deafening in his ears.

" Tell no one. Never take it off, not even if it is me asking, en'ca minne aep Hen Ichaer," the melancholy smile has his grip faltering under Jack's fingers. "There are those who would kill for it, and there are those who would use you, if not for it, a lesson hard-learned."

He has to blink the tears away; the sword lying forgotten in the straw, trembling hands cupping Jack's face.

"You are real."

The words are like the first gulp of air taken in years.

"You gave me gifts I can never repay you for. You gifted me death, and you offered me life. You are my home, for a part of me is a part of you, and a part of you is a part of me," Jack continues, leaning over Gabriel, fingers tracing his cheekbones. "The songs of your mother and the stories of your father, I keep them for you, and I'll continue to do so, forevermore. Once, you had asked me to come with you, and I had accepted then, and so, I would accept it now, again. Eich'en a'bleth essea, Rhenaweddin."

To believe is the hardest thing, but with Jack gently brushing away his tears and his head cradled to Jack's breast, Gabriel finds the strength to do just that. As the quiet voice sings songs he knows but does not remember, he finally sleeps peacefully in forever stretching like a dark mourning shroud over the years - until a cockcrow announces the new morn and fingers combing his hair stop.

"You grew it out long."

A new day, finally, with the sun climbing over the horizon, the spot of light crawling down the wall, and a rooster that could use some shutting up.

"It can be cut now."

"It fits you, cub, you have the face for it. I looked like a haystack."

The emptiness floats inside him, the indescribable void bereft of any emotion Gabriel has a name for, refreshing and aching - he lets himself be carried on its calm surface.

"Did you have the whole deal? The hair-cutting?"

"It was awkward. I went from Strach to Mikheil."

"Strach?"

"Tearth."

"She didn't have high hopes for you, then," Gabriel chuckles as the rooster goes for umpteenth repetition, suddenly interrupted by wild squawking and the sound of wings beating frantically.

"What?" Jack feigns innocence for a moment before laughing. "Lord Murders-A-Lot is sometimes useful. Not very often, but it happens."

"You sent a weasel after a cock."

"Truth be told, Reginald isn't a very brave cock. The hens are fearless, though, once a hawk made the grave error of sneaking into the coop, barely flew away with its dear life. They do like to cuddle, too, did you know?"

"No," Gabriel sighs, closing his eyes again. Nothing changes yet everything does, and he's simply tired - so tired - the exhaustion of the sort that seeps inside and settles heavy and sluggish at the very core of one's being for so long it remains unnoticeable.

"You should sleep more and I need to help with preparations." His arms tighten around Jack's waist upon hearing the words, loath as he is to let go of him even for a second, and Jack curls around him, to place a kiss on his forehead. "I'll be back with you soon, little cub. There are things to be done for the feast. So, sleep and dream."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since there's only so much of Elder Speech, I decided to borrow from Welsh again, tylwyth from Tylwyth Teg. Coming from the 'elder creatures' themselves, I feel they would rather refer to themselves as family/kin than fae. So, basically, that's 'wild/fae wife' that's referred to in that bit. Bruxa probably got a very stern talking to.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one has a song, please play it since it's the song being sung at the beginning of the chapter :)  
> [Darren Korb - Lament of Orpheus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oll7pr4JVTQ)

Gabriel wakes up alone and with the aftertaste of the chaos on his tongue. From the outside, a melody plucked on lute's strings floats. Absentmindedly, he picks straw from his hair and rebinds it in a low-hanging ponytail. Custom calls for it to be shorn with the mourning ended but he is hesitant, not willing to make his mind up yet – what is the point of keeping the customs he does not know the true weight of?

He loosens the buckles and clasps of the armor, the particular feeling of having slept in it fading – the drops of dried blood on it reassuring. Soon, the brassards join the chest piece on the blankets, and Gabriel turns his attention to the bags showing obvious signs of having been tampered with, obviously so. A fresh shirt, although wrinkled, hangs above them, thrown haphazardly over the wooden wall of the box. He runs his fingers against the dyed cloth, the weave tight and simple, the stitching reinforced with strips of cured leather.

Outside, a distinct voice meandering between harmony and dissonance carries a maudlin melody.

"Hear, o gods, my desperate plea, to see my love beside me."

He changes, listening to the song and wondering over its rhyme, or maybe he's trying to look too deep into it, and the words of warning to not mistake the stars for their reflection on the surface of the water come to mind.

"Sunk below the mortal sea her anchor weighs upon me."

Still, it's one of those songs performed when drunks had either slipped under the tables or turned contemplative – and when the brawls and the boasts transformed into the philosophies discussed over the cups of mead and dirty tables.

"Fasten her tether unto me that she may rise to sail free."

Gabriel steps out into the open. The sun pleasantly warms his skin, the smell of meat roasted with juniper and rowanberry wine wafts on the air.

"Don't look back," Sombra holds the melody on her tongue, the words mingling fluidly together into one flowing utterance. She puts her palm across the strings of the lute held in her lap, a fleeting smile on her lips. By her side, with his legs crossed, sits Jack, looking up with an expression equal parts fond, apologetic, and the kind a mischievous kid caught stealing apples might wear.

"I was looking for clean clothes for you, and you had her crystal at the bottom of one bag, so I thought..."

"...you'd call me in the middle of the night?" Sombra snorts.

"It was an hour before noon, witch."

"The middle of the night, as I said, you incorrigible forest pest."

"Oh, excuse me, your witchness, I forgot about your never-ending moral hangover."

"Rich, coming from an ungulate," Sombra tries to sound offended but her face betrays her with how red-rimmed her eyes still are, and her hair curl around her cheek naturally, the coiffure forwent. The same with her garments, the frilly shirt with several laces undone and breeches more akin to something gathered at a moment's notice in a frantic hurry. Gabriel smiles, coming closer, beckoned with Jack's outstretched hand.

"It's not me with a weasel betwixt my tits."

"He likes it there because there is something he can lie betwixt, warm and soft, and voluminous."

"I'm still growing so that's uncalled for," Jack gives her a look full of almost genuine hurt as he pulls Gabriel down to the ground to rest between his now uncrossed legs.

Gabriel lets himself be guided and falls with his back against Jack's chest, different yet so familiar – arms circling his waist and the chin wedged over his shoulder as Jack laughs with a huff. "Oof, you're heavy now, cub."

"At least, we're past the puberty," Sombra smiles indulgently.

"Don't get me started, witch, the pimples were the least of my worries, the wenches are like bloodhounds after a wounded stag," Jack jests with a note of challenge in his tone. Sombra brushes her fingers against the strings, wresting a whimsical accord out of the lute.

"Forgive me for having no sympathy, ungulate. Now," she cocks her head, mischief in her gaze, "what are your plans?"

"I was thinking, I've never been to Skellige, little cub."

"Skellige?" Gabriel questions, shifting somewhat. "Why Skellige?"

"Oh," Jack moves one hand to his hair and picks at the stray blade of straw Gabriel must have missed earlier, "lots of druids to piss off, and we might still get there for the sirens’ nesting period, I hear they're testy and irritable then, more than usual."

"I'll give you two months and meet you at Bremervoord. I'm booking the passage because I absolutely do not trust you both not to choose a hole-ridden tub that will sink if the wave rides higher than a hem of priestess' skirt," Sombra clicks her tongue at the end.

"Three months."

She stares at Gabriel, at first incredulous, then her expression morphs into a sly look unbefitting her lousy appearance.

"Yes, yes, a vast quantity of time to make up for, indeed, I do feel a ballad calling to me."

"No," Gabriel sighs, closing his eyes. “No ballads..."

"Yes, absolutely no ballads, I am still very much traumatized by your appalling rhymester vagaries," Jack pitches in his two crowns and Sombra is opening her mouth to object already.

"We have to drop by the stronghold to pick something up."

"We do?" Jack sounds surprised and Gabriel feels his chin shifting on his shoulder – imagining the inquisitive tilt of the head he needs not to see to know well.

"Your swords."

"You kept them."

"Of course I did. They were-are good swords," he catches himself too late. Only now, Gabriel notices how profound the shift from 'was' to 'is' is - it's one thing to believe this reality, and another to accommodate it and let it redefine the pain and the loneliness, and finally the acceptance, in the years before – and some surprise resentment lingers.

He's reminded of how everything – and nothing at all – had changed after he had acquiesced to Jack's attentions for the first time.

"I need a leak." Sombra pulls herself up, leaving the lute on the ground. "Don't wait for me," she adds before briskly moving to the fence and vaulting over it. Strangely, no retort is coming from Jack, and Gabriel notices the tears when a brush of the lips on his cheek smears the moisture. How kind of her to leave.

"I'm sorry, cub. I am," Jack whispers, "truly, terribly, horribly sorry, for all. For everything. I could feel you, know that you are out there, but the knowledge of seeing you was beyond my grasp," he muses, his palm rising to Gabriel's other cheek. "The flower weaves its protections, even from me, so I could only wait for you to come to me until I could go to you myself."

"Your farewells."

"Today, the same as Nielub's hair-cutting, but it doesn't mean I have to leave in the evening," Jack sighs, fingers playing with Gabriel's hair again, twirling the loose strands with a doting tempo. "Tomorrow's not too late, and neither too early."

It strikes him that maybe Jack does not want to leave having known family life now, something he would have not experienced before. Something of the thought must reflect in him because Jack chuckles and nuzzles his cheek with his nose before speaking again.

"It's my time to leave, with you, cub. You're all I need, and want," he sighs. "It won't be the easiest, I did get used to this kind of existence, but... I didn't know better, it was wrong of me to take them from you."

"You're keeping them safe for me."

"Always will."

The irony of 'I didn't know better' does not elude Gabriel; having his own words turned against him in a strange twist brings comfort rather than uneasiness – two admissions of guilt neither of them faults the other for.

"It's enough, knowing they are with you."

He wants to add his own apology but the unexpected screech has him looking at the source: Sombra frantically trying to wriggle her hand into her shirt from the top.

"Watch the claws, you furry Nilfgaardian bastard! Out! Out!"

"I think that's our cue, hm, cub?"

"Did you...?"

"I'd never. He just got bored," Jack chuckles as Sombra turns twice on the spot unsuccessfully attempting to halt with her hands the bump moving under the cloth, the weasel each time squeezing under or between her palms.

"Your whore mother of..."

"Murder mother!" Jack quips, slipping away from behind Gabriel. "Just stand still."

"The demon has the claws in my belly," Sombra hisses, arms outstretched and held away from her sides. "Get it out. Now. Or there will be a fried weasel appetizer."

"You wouldn't," Jack puts a palm against his chest with a horrified gasp, stopping just before her and leaning down. "Lord Murders-A-Lot does not deserve such a barbaric end!"

"Or a ballad."

"Now, this is a fate worse than death."

He grabs Sombra's shirt and pulls the bottom out of her britches, catching the falling weasel with his other hand. Lord Murders-A-Lot scurries up his arm with a chirp and briefly nibbles on his ear.

"I'm scratched all over. Devil, not a weasel."

"All weasels are devils."

As Jack pets the Lord, Gabriel feels himself slipping and falling back into the rhythm of it, the equilibrium snapping into place like the last piece of an astrolabe tracking the movement of the spheres.

"Just don't get him started."

"You're just jealous of my wee murder ribbon."

"I don't get his obsession with weasels," Sombra mutters, stuffing her shirt back where it belongs before she leans down for her lute.

"Neither do I?" Gabriel chuckles looking to Jack who smiles softly - his gaze warm and content, and something more elusive swirling behind it.

"C'mon," he beckons with his head, offering his hand to Gabriel, "it's about to start, would be rude to keep everyone waiting, wouldn't it?"

"It would." Gabriel accepts and grips his palm, pulling himself up and stumbling Jack for a moment – at first trying to steal a quick kiss but losing himself in it amidst the laughter.


End file.
